We must have the mind of Christ

Jer. 20:7-9, Rom. 12:1-2, Mt 16:21-27. On this Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A, the Church encourages us to face and overcome our obstacles in order to be truly happy in life. In today's first reading, Jeremiah seems to regret that he was called by God to be his prophet: “You have seduced me, Lord, and I have let myself be seduced.” As a result he became an object of people’s ridicule, “everybody’s butt”. Every time he opened his mouth, he warns about violence and disaster coming on God’s people. Paul, in the second reading, also knew all about this. He urges his fellow-Christians to offer their “living bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God” and not to “model themselves on the behaviour of the world around." They need a “new mind”, the way of thinking which Jesus had and which Peter certainly did not yet have in today’s Gospel.

Today’s Gospel goes further than just asking us to understand why the glory of Jesus our King and Lord was to be found through suffering and the shameful death of the Cross. There is a further call for us to walk the same road with Jesus: “If anyone (not just the heroic martyr or the saint) wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Jesus asks us to dedicate our lives in totally loving and serving others even if, at times, this involves misunderstanding, ridicule, pain and even death. To follow Jesus fully, we must be able to see life as He sees it, we must have that “mind of Christ”. When we have the mind of Christ then we can see our lives in terms of loving and serving others and not in the pursuit of purely self-centred or even family-centred ambition. When we have the mind of Christ, the whole direction of our life changes. Our whole concept of happiness changes. Jesus calls us not just to a life of sacrifice and suffering but to a life of total love and freedom.

May the Lord help us to be transformed into His image so that others will come to know Him by the way we relate to them and our lives be that of loving service to God! Amen!! Stay safe and save life, Jesus loves you, happy Sunday!!!